Manggar Beach; Forest Tourism KM-10, Karang Joang; Crocodile breeding; Agro Wisata Park KM 25 Karang Joang; People Struggle Monument; Balikpapan Bay: Wain River and Lamaru Beach . Below the wellknown places of interest:
Manggar Beach Balikpapan
There is another beach that you can go to if you are visiting Balikpapan in East Borneo, Indonesia, called Pantai Manggar (pantai means beach in English). Before there were other beaches such as Lamaru and de Dalmas Beach, Manggar was the most developed and well managed beach in Balikpapan. The place used to be clean, nice, full with visitors who would like to enjoy the water, or just relaxing with family, eating at the food vendors offshore.
Even today people still go to Manggar, but the numbers of visitors are certainly declined big time in recent years as the other beaches I mentioned are more better managed and cleaner than what Manggar looks like today.
At this beach, a few vendors are renting big used tires for kids to float with while they are in the water. The last time we went to Manggar beach back in 2004, it was Daisy’s (my niece) first time ever swimming day. She was so scared and even though we rented one of the smaller tire for her, she wouldn’t go near the water unless all of us go with her ON tires as well. So it was really funny :-)
In most of parts of Indonesia, people hardly go to beaches using swimsuit; unless you go to tourists’ city such as Bali, I suggest you forget your swim suit if you want to swim in Balikpapan’ beaches; but of course it is different story if you are at a public swimming pool, you do need to put on your swimsuit!
If you go to Manggar beach and wanting to try the food there, get Bakso, it’s similar to Vietnamese Pho Bo (beef noodle soup), and it is yummy. They usually also offers Es Kelapa Muda which is coconut on ice with sweet syrup, yum!
Alligator FarmingWhen my husband and I were vacationing to Indonesia back in 2004, we went to Balikpapan city in East Borneo to visit our family there. They took us to the alligator farming place in Teritip. Teritip is like a suburban area of Balikpapan. This place can be reached by car and it is well known as “Penangkaran Buaya”.
The farming place has lots of alligator for sure. Some were placed in muddy cage-park which I believe those alligator belong to the Estuary family (Crocodilus porosus), some were in smaller cage-room with greenish water everywhere which if I am mistaken was called Supit alligator, so that means those belong to the Supit family (Tomistoma schlegel), and some more were in another cage-room belong to Lake family (Crocodylus novaeguineae).
To see around this alligator farming is quite amusing as you can see the baby alligators as well as the huge ones. Some of them were just laying there quietly, some more were biting and fighting and they splashed water almost everywhere, and that of course, scared the younger visitors.
In this farming place, there are quite a few of snakes’ cages as well. It’s amazing how the cage is not closed cage as in made with glass just like aquarium, so it is quite open. Visitors can poke the snakes or even if parents are not careful, their kids can touch the snakes with bare hands! Isn’t that scary? But when we were there, there weren’t any visitors that stupid enough to give their hands or fingers willingly to the snakes in the cage. Thank God!
At the farming area as well, we saw a few small eatery places, almost like restaurants. We didn’t make a stop at these eatery places as the youngster in the family ran for elephant trip already! Yes, not too far from the parking lot of the alligator farming place, there is a park where they have 1 huge elephant and 1 tiny elephant and kids can ride them. My husband as shown in the picture rode the elephant along with our Indonesian niece and nephew ha-ha.
Nearby were street vendors selling snacks and drinks and the kids were crowding them. I quite liked this trip to the alligator farming. It was a nice day and I keep plenty beautiful memories.
